Allegiant: an Alternate Ending
by C-Rivers
Summary: I was really upset by the ending of Allegiant, so I'm writing a fanfiction to fix it. INTENSE SPOILERS FOR END OF ALLEGIANT: Tris doesn't die in this fic. That is its main concept. If you don't like it, don't read it. K for the time being, but that may get a bit smuttier in the future. Fourtris. Hope you like it!
1. Chapter 1

I hear footsteps in the hallway outside. The soldiers are coming. Good— I need them to. I need them to be exposed to the airborne serum, to pass it on to the rest of the compound. I hope they wait until the air is clear of death serum.

"My mother wasn't a fool," I say. "She just understood something you didn't. That it's not a sacrifice if it's someone else's life you're giving away; it's just evil."

I back up another step and say, "she taught me all about real sacrifice. That it should be done from love, not misplaced disgust for another person's genetics. That it should be done from necessity, not without exhausting all other options. That it should be done for people who need your strength because they don't have enough of their own. That's why I need to stop you from 'sacrificing' all those people and their memories. Why I need to rid the world of you once and for all."

I shake my head.

"I didn't come here to steal anything, David."

I twist and lunge toward the device. The gun goes off and pain races through my body. I don't even know where the bullet hit me.

I can still hear Caleb repeating the code for Matthew. With a quaking hand I type in the numbers on the keypad.

The gun goes off again.

So much pain, and black edges on my vision, but I hear Caleb's voice speaking again. The green button.

So much pain.

But how, when my body feels so numb?

I start to fall, and slam my head into the keypad on my way down. A light turns on behind the green button.

I hear a beep, and a churning sound.

I slide to the floor. I feel something warm on my neck, and under my cheek. Red. Blood is a strange color. Dark.

From the corner of my eye, I see David slumped over in his chair.

And my mother walking out from behind him.

She is dressed in the same clothes she wore the last time I saw her, Abnegation gray, stained with her blood, with bare arms to show her tattoo. There are still bullet holes in her shirt; through them I can see her wounded skin, red but no longer bleeding, like she's frozen in time. Her dull blond hair is tied back in a knot, but a few loose strands frame her face in gold.

I know she can't be alive, but I don't know if I'm seeing her now because I'm delirious from the blood loss or if the death serum has addled my thoughts or if she is here in some other way.

She kneels next to me and touches a cool hand to my cheek.

"Hello, Beatrice," she says, and she smiles.

"Am I done yet?" I say, and I'm not sure if I actually say it or if I just think it and she hears it.

"No," she says, her eyes bright with tears. "My dear child, you've done so well. But you're not done. You deserve more than you've received."

"That's selfish."

"It's not selfish to wish for life."

I choke out a sob. "What about the others?" My heart spasms as the image of Tobias comes into my mind, of how dark and still his eyes were, how strong and warm his hand was, when we first stood face-to-face. "Tobias, Caleb, my friends?"

"You'll see them when you wake up. Until then, they'll care for each other," she says. "That's what people do."

I smile and close my eyes.

I feel a thread tugging at me again, but this time I know that it isn't going to take me. My mother told me I wasn't done, and I know she wouldn't lie to me. She takes out a pair of her sewing scissors and clips the thread, calmly, as if she's just finished sewing back together a split seam on one of my old school dresses.

"You'll see me again once it's your time, Beatrice. But I will see you many times before then." My eyes are still closed, but I can tell she's smiling. I fall, slowly, into the warmth of my mother's arms.


	2. Chapter 2

I start awake, drawing breath into my lungs as rapidly as I can for fear I am dead. But I'm not dead. Am I? I can't tell. There's too much pain to tell. It hurts when I breathe, which means I must be close to death. I breathe harder, pulling air into my lungs, tears seeping out of my eyes from the strain on my ribs. The world is shaking around me, and I am at the will of whatever force is touching me right now, shaking me in all the wrong directions, hurting every inch of my body. I try to calm myself down, and fail. I can't open my eyes, I can't think, all I can do is attempt to process the searing pain coming at me from whatever hurt me, and whatever is still hurting me. I gasp again, and this time my voice kicks in. I hadn't fully realized I could still speak. Now I can ask for help, or I would if I could still think. I struggle to make another sound. There is nothing I can do but try to yell. I need help, and I have no other way. I cannot deal with the pain. So I yell.

My yell ends up little more than a wheeze. I yell again, but it cames out the same volume as before. Fuck it all, it hurts too much.

"Wait, wait, she's awake! Oh my god, she's awake. Get her to the clinic!" However quiet my sound may have been, somebody heard me.

My strategy worked. I am being taken to a clinic. I gasp again, against my will this time, as I'm jostled in just the wrong way and shooting pain deals a blow straight to my head. I do not want to be conscious. But I also do not want to be dead. Is this the death serum? If it is, I have to fight it. I stoke my fire, but it's nearly gone. I want to live, but the pain, the pain, the pain. It's too much. I try to scream, and it comes out nearly silent, but I don't care, I don't care, it's too much pain, searing pain, and it's everywhere, and I black out.


End file.
